


What You Dare (The Ripple Effect Remix)

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Remix, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sally Donovan is tired of being taken for granted.</p>
<p>She's not the only one with a bit of a history in that regard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Dare (The Ripple Effect Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The End of the Affair](https://archiveofourown.org/works/292713) by [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock). 



“I heard you ended things with Anderson,” Molly says, handing Sally an inch-thick folder that Sally half-expects to spew its contents all over the floor of the morgue at Barts. “He was saying, well…” Sally, focused almost entirely on saving herself the humiliation of scrabbling for papers, blinks at her, and Molly trails off. “Um.”

“What’s _that_ got do with anything?” she asks, a little harsher than she meant – she’s tired of people always making the same boring assumptions, dammit – and Molly flinches, but she straightens up a little more instead of ducking away.

“Well, it’s just that he he came in here the other day and he was ranting about you for twenty minutes, really quite nastily, and I gathered that he’s been pretty much the same with anyone who’ll listen, so…” She shrugs. “I just thought you might like a warning, that’s all. In case he starts making things difficult at work. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Molly has a true talent for making people feel like an ass, Sally reflects, dragging her fingers through her hair and quickly adjusting her grip on the papers. “Don’t apologize, for God’s sake, I shouldn’t have snapped. Thank you for letting me know.”

“You’re welcome,” Molly says, small smile stealing across her face. Sally nods, turns away as she runs down her mental checklist of further folders in need of collecting, and Molly clears her throat behind her. Sally glances back.

“I heard about what Sherlock said, too,” Molly shoves out, hands twisted into the edge of her coat. “About – er, scrubbing Anderson’s floors, that is. I’m sorry. He can be, well, he can be a little harsh.”

Sally barely manages not to snort – really, a _little?_ Instead she shrugs, leaning back against the wall: “That’s one way of putting it, I guess. And thank you, but actually, that had nothing to do with it. I don’t really care, except that it’s him being an arse again.”

“Oh.” Molly hesitates. “Um, why, then?”

Sally sighs, looking at the ceiling and turning over the ordinary answers – but then, Molly spent almost a year as the only girl here, apparently, and she’s not asking to be cruel, so she shrugs and says, “Because I got tired of letting him take me for granted, honestly.”

“ _Oh.”_ Molly gnaws her lip as she turns that over, tilting her head, and Sally’s about to clear her throat and vanish down the hall when Molly breaks into the widest smile Sally’s ever seen from her, sunny and slow. “Good for you,” she says. “That’s – that’s really something. Good.”

Sally smiles back, cheeks heating up. “Well, I had to leave some privileges reserved for my cat, or he’d sulk.” Molly laughs.

“Cats are like that, you’re right. At least they’re fluffy. Anyway, I have to –” She gestures, Sally nods, and with that, they go their separate ways.

\----------- 

Because seeing Lestrade laid up at Bart’s isn’t unpleasant enough, Sally nearly walks straight into Sherlock Holmes as he stalks out of Molly’s lab like a great gangly bird, calling “Speed is more important than convenience,” over his shoulder.

“Oi –” Sally starts, but he’s gone before she can finish, or even properly _start_ ; she wishes, pettily, that the door had got caught in his stupid coat, and edges her way into the lab.

Molly’s leaning against the wall, her eyes closed and her shoulders sinking so low they seem only half-attached; as Sally watches, her chest rises and falls in the slow deep breaths of someone trying to calm down but insisting that they’re trying to stay calm. Her lips are painted a cheery bright rose, slightly smudged with hurry.

“Sherlock Holmes is a horse’s arse,” Sally snaps, jerking the door closed behind her. Molly blinks.

“Oh – hello, Sally. It’s all right, he didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just –”

“Just him acting like you’re a bloody wind-up automaton that just needs a little nudge here and there?” Sally interrupts. “Just him – just –” Molly’s crumpling in front of her, rubbing her hand against her eyes as she lets the wall take most of her weight, and Sally breathes in deep and out again. This isn’t about her. “You’re worth ten of him, Molly.”

“No I’m not,” Molly protests, straightening with pure surprise. Sally might as well have said that the moon is made of asparagus. “He’s probably the cleverest detective in centuries. I’m just – me.”

“How hard have you worked to get here?” Sally asks, bracing her hands on the clean exam table. “Come on, Molls – Molly, I mean, sorry. It’s not like this is an easy job–”

“Well, yes, but it’s not the same thing,” Molly cuts in, which is a first as far as Sally knows. “He’s – well, you know what he’s like, I couldn’t do what he does in a million years, I’m just _ordinary._ ”

“And he’s never worked a day in his life,” Sally argues. “He got born with the brains of three people and all the sense and compassion of a chunk of rock, since I’m calling John Watson a statistical anomaly, and he put it to use because he’s a posh white man with a brother who could buy most of the solar system, and if he didn’t have any of that he’d probably be dead in a gutter. You’ve _done_ things.”

“Well –” Molly pauses, chews her lip. “Well, maybe, but it’s… that’s a whole different kettle of fish, isn’t it? And some people are just lucky like that. Special.”

Sally grits her teeth, whacking the back of her head against the door. “And you work with cadavers every day and see the poor bastards on the wrong end of the worst this city can throw at us and you still keep a pink blog covered in pictures of cats and sympathize with people who treat you horribly. That’s special too, Molls.” She stops herself. “I don’t know why I keep calling you that, I’m sorry.”

Molly’s blushing now, twisting her hands in front of her. “It’s okay, I don’t mind.” Sally opens her mouth, and Molly adds, “I rather like it, actually.”

“Oh.” Sally shuts her mouth, shoves her hands in her pockets and shifts her weight from foot to foot. Molly sighs, focusing on the middle distance as turns sideways to her counter, fiddling with tools. Sally doesn’t get the sense she’s been dismissed, exactly, but it’s Molly, and so she hovers, trying to work out what to do. She’s almost decided to leave when Molly sighs again, shaking her head.

“It’s just – he’s fascinating, is the problem. Fascinating and clever and I… I’ve always had a problem with people like him, really. It would be nice to be able to, to prove I’m – you know. Good enough.” She shrugs like shaking something off, looks up and smiles crookedly. “Hey, at least I’m being useful. We’ve probably caught half a dozen people because I helped him out.”

“More than that with everything you do for us,” Sally says, because she has to say something, and digs her fingernails into her palm. “Just – it wouldn’t kill him to be polite to you, and it wouldn’t kill you to make him. A little respect goes a long way, all that.”

Molly shrugs one shoulder, crooking her head the same direction in a way that looks like a cartoon character’s endearing quirk, or maybe a puppet’s. “Maybe.” She giggles. “Oh dear, now I’m imagining myself dangling a foot in front of him and saying ‘say please, Sherlock!’ like he’s a two-year-old.”

Sally sputters, clapping a hand over her mouth to avoid rousing the whole department. “Good Lord, I’d give a week’s paycheck to see that,” she sputters.  “Good Lord. How long do you think he’d sulk?”

“Only until the case distracted him,” Molly says, smiling. “Probably a good thing. I mean, a sulking Holmes is sort of like a… a time-bomb, I suppose, or maybe... I don’t know, you think of something.”

Sally hums, drumming her fingers against her leg as she turns her chances over. “I think more like a weak pipe,” she offers. “It gets worse and worse until it finally cracks and then you’ll be in for a world of hurt.”  

“Hmm… it sounds sort of right?” Molly shrugs, glancing at the clock. “I’m sorry, it’s not that I want to get rid of you or anything, but I’m going to have a corpse up here in a second –”

“No, no, I understand.” Sally nods, tugging the door open behind her. “Enjoy your work. And – just think about telling him to keep a civil tongue in his head, all right? It’s not going to make the sky fall in.”

\----------- 

Normally Sally doesn’t make it a habit to just _stop_ in the middle of the hall, especially when it’s a hospital hall and she’s on an errand, but she can actually hear Molly Hooper from three rooms away. It’s enough to make the theme song for _The Twilight Zone_ start playing her head. “I’m sorry,” Molly is saying, clear and stubborn and a little breathless, “you know I’m always happy to help, but to do this that quickly I’d have to stay past one tomorrow, and I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Why not?” _That_ is Sherlock Holmes, both baffled and freely affronted, and Sally leans against the wall as quietly as she can manage, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“Because it’s my birthday, actually,” Molly says simply, “and I’m not going to spend it working all night for something that isn’t a top priority. I can get all the results to you by Thursday or you could always ask somebody else, but if you _needed_ this the day after tomorrow then Lestrade would have mentioned it.”

“ _Well._ ” A minute later the door slams open and Sherlock swoops past in a flapping of wool; Sally can’t quite choke back a delighted cackle, and the glare he shoots her could peel paint. Sally shrugs, still laughing, and pelts down the hall to Molly’s lab, dignity be damned.

“Oh my _God,_ ” she gasps. “Oh my _God.”_ Molly’s clinging to the exam table, the surface bloodstained now, swaying on her feet and gaping at the doorway, but at Sally’s cry a grin starts shoving through the disbelief.

“I can’t believe I did that,” she whispers, and starts to laugh. “Oh my God, I just did that!”

“Goddamn _great_ on you,” Sally says, slapping her palm against the door for emphasis. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen – or, well, heard. I could kiss you.”

“His _face –”_ Molly sputters, wiping her eyes against the crook of her elbow as she gasps for breath. “Of course, now I’m never going to be able to look him in the eye again.”

“Sure you can,” Sally argues, waving her hand. “You were being completely reasonable and a lot politer than he ever is. Besides, he’ll have forgotten all about it as soon as he’s got some murder victim’s fingernails to think about.”

“Good point,” Molly admits, nodding, and turns back to her tools, pauses to look over her shoulder. “Thanks, Sally. A lot.”

Sally smiles, fidgeting in embarrassment. “No need to thank me.”

“No, there is.” Molly meets her eyes. “Really.”

“Well.” She coughs. “You’re welcome, then?” Molly nods, turning back to her tools with an apologetic smile, and Sally makes her escape before she has to deal with any further unexpected compliments.

\----------- 

The next day there’s a box wrapped in bright red paper on Molly’s lab table when she arrives in the morning. She frowns, turns it over in her hands and tugs gently at the ribbon – gold cloth, bright and pretty – until all the wrappings fall away around a plain black box and a plain white card. Molly picks it up, squints at the unfamiliar handwriting and starts to smile.

_Happy birthday, Molls. I didn’t have a lot of warning, but I figured these would look good on you, and you seem to like this stuff. Just promise me not to wear them for the freak, okay?_

The box holds half a dozen shades of lipstick. Molly smiles even wider and picks up the color labeled Summer Sunrise.


End file.
